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Google
Google LLC5 is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple and Facebook.67 Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14 percent of its shares and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through supervoting stock. They incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. An initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004, and Google moved to its headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's leading subsidiary and will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page who became the CEO of Alphabet. The company's rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond Google's core search engine (Google Search). It offers services designed for work and productivity (Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides), email (Gmail/Inbox), scheduling and time management (Google Calendar), cloud storage (Google Drive), instant messaging and video chat (Google Allo, Duo, Hangouts), language translation (Google Translate), mapping and navigation (Google Maps, Waze, Google Earth, Street View), video sharing (YouTube), note-taking (Google Keep), and photo organizing and editing (Google Photos). The company leads the development of the Androidmobile operating system, the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on the Chrome browser. Google has moved increasingly into hardware; from 2010 to 2015, it partnered with major electronics manufacturers in the production of its Nexusdevices, and it released multiple hardware products in October 2016, including the Google Pixel smartphone, Google Home smart speaker, Google Wifi mesh wireless router, and Google Daydream virtual reality headset. Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier (Google Fiber, Project Fi, and Google Station).8 Google.com is the most visited website in the world.9 Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube and Blogger. Google is the most valuable brand in the world as of 2017,10 but has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, antitrust, censorship, and search neutrality. Google's mission statement is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". The companies unofficial slogan "Don't be evil" was removed from the company's code of conduct around May 2018.1112 Contents HistoryEdit Early yearsEdit Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2003 Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California.13 While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites.14 They called this new technology PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site.1516 Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.171819 Eventually, they changed the name to Google; the name of the search engine originated from a misspelling of the word "googol",2021 the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.22 Google's original homepage had a simple design because the company founders had little experience in HTML, the markup language used for designing web pages.23 The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997,24 and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in the garage of a friend (Susan Wojcicki13) in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.132526 Google was initially funded by an August 1998 contribution of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems; the money was given before Google was incorporated.27 Google received money from three other angel investors in 1998: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Stanford University computer science professor David Cheriton, and entrepreneur Ram Shriram.28 Between these initial investors, friends, and family Google raised around 1 million dollars, which is what allowed them to open up their original shop in Menlo Park, California 29 After some additional, small investments through the end of 1998 to early 1999,28 a new $25 million round of funding was announced on June 7, 1999,30 with major investors including the venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital.27 GrowthEdit In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California,31 which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups.32 The next year, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine.3313 To maintain an uncluttered page design, advertisements were solely text-based.34 In June 2000, it was announced that Google would become the default search engine provider for Yahoo!, one of the most popular websites at the time, replacing Inktomi.3536 Google's first production server.37 In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics, at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.38 The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.39 By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet".4041 Additionally, in 2001 Google's Investors felt the need to have a strong internal management, and they agreed to hire Eric Schmidt as the Chairman and CEO of Google 42 Initial public offeringEdit Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place five years later, on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024.43 At IPO, the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.4445 Shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal.4647 The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.48 Eric Schmidt In October 2006, Google announced that it had acquired the video-sharing site YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock,4950 and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.5152 On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, transferring to Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising agencies.53 In 2005, The Washington Post reported on a 700 percent increase in third-quarter profit for Google, largely thanks to large companies shifting their advertising strategies from newspapers, magazines, and television to the Internet.54 In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time.55 By 2011, Google was handling approximately 3 billion searches per day. To handle this workload, Google built 11 datacentersaround the world with some several thousand servers in each. These datacenters allowed Google to handle the ever changing workload more efficiently.56 On August 15, 2011, Google made its largest-ever acquisition to date when it announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion5758 This purchase was made in part to help Google gain Motorola's considerable patent portfolio on mobile phones and wireless technologies, to help protect Google in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies,59 mainly Apple and Microsoft,60 and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android.61 2012 onwardEdit The year 2012 was the first time that Google generated $50 billion in annual revenue, generating $38 billion the previous year. In January 2013, then-CEO Larry Page commented, "We ended 2012 with a strong quarter ... Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half."62 In June 2013, Google acquired Waze, a $966 million deal.63 While Waze would remain an independent entity, its social features, such as its crowdsourced location platform, were reportedly valuable integrations between Waze and Google Maps, Google's own mapping service.64 Google announced the launch of a new company, called Calico, on September 19, 2013, to be led by Apple, Inc. chairman Arthur Levinson. In the official public statement, Page explained that the "health and well-being" company would focus on "the challenge of ageing and associated diseases".65 Entrance of building where Google and its subsidiary Deep Mind are located at 6 Pancras Square, London, UK. On January 26, 2014, Google announced it had agreed to acquire DeepMind Technologies, a privately held artificial intelligence company from London.66 Technology news website Recodereported that the company was purchased for $400 million though it was not disclosed where the information came from. A Google spokesman would not comment of the price.6768 The purchase of DeepMind aids in Google's recent growth in the artificial intelligence and robotics community.69 According to Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report, Google has been the second most valuable brand in the world (behind Apple Inc.) in 2013,70 2014,71 2015,72 and 2016, with a valuation of $133 billion.73 On August 10, 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet. Google became Alphabet's leading subsidiary, and will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became CEO of Alphabet.747576 As of October 2016, Google operates 70 offices in more than 40 countries.77 Alexa, a company that monitors commercial web traffic, lists Google.com as the most visited website in the world.9 Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube78 and Blogger.79 On August 8, 2017, Google fired employee James Damore after he distributed a memo throughout the company which argued that "Google's ideological echo chamber" and bias clouded their thinking about diversity and inclusion, and that it is also biological factors, not discrimination alone, that cause the average woman to be less interested than men in technical positions.80 Google CEO Sundar Pichai accused Damore in violating company policy by "advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace", and he was fired on the same day.818283 New York Times columnist David Brooks argued Pichai had mishandled the case, and called for his resignation.8485 On 25 October 2018, The New York Times published the exposé, "How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the ‘Father of Android’". The company subsequently announced that "48 employees have been fired over the last two years" for sexual misconduct.86 On 1 November 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees and contractors staged a global walk-out to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment complaints.8788 On March 19, 2019, Google announced that it would enter the video game market, launching a cloud gaming platform called Google Stadia.89 Products and servicesEdit Search engineEdit Google Search homepage as of 2 December 2016 Google indexes billions of web pages to allow users to search for the information they desire through the use of keywords and operators.90 According to comScore market research from November 2009, Google Search is the dominant search engine in the United States market, with a market share of 65.6%.91 In May 2017, Google enabled a new "Personal" tab in Google Search, letting users search for content in their Google accounts' various services, including email messages from Gmail and photos from Google Photos.9293 Google launched its Google News service in 2002, an automated service which summarizes news articles from various websites.94 Google also hosts Google Books, a service which searches the text found in books in its database and shows limited previews or and the full book where allowed.95 AdvertisingEdit Google on ad-tech London, 2010 As per its 2017 Annual report, Google generates most of its revenues from advertising. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on google and YouTube, android and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. 46% of this was from clicks (cost per clicks), amounting to US$109,652 million in 2017. This includes three principal methods, namely AdMob, AdSense (such as AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) and DoubleClick AdExchange.96 For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues.97 In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs.98 In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology from the company DoubleClick, to project user interest and target advertising to the search context and the user history.99100 In 2007, Google launched "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.101 Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page.102 Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through a cost-per-click scheme.103 The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked.104 One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud, which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing the advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid.105 Consumer servicesEdit Web-based servicesEdit Google offers Gmail for email,106 Google Calendar for time-management and scheduling,107 Google Maps for mapping, navigation and satellite imagery,108 Google Drive for cloud storage of files,109 Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for productivity,109 Google Photos for photo storage and sharing,110 Google Keep for note-taking,111 Google Translate for language translation,112 YouTube for video viewing and sharing,113 Google My Business for managing public business information,114 and Duo for social interaction.115 In March 2019, Google unveiled a cloud gaming service named Stadia.89 SoftwareEdit Google develops the Android mobile operating system,116 as well as its smartwatch,117 television,118 car,119 and Internet of things-enabled smart devices variations.120 It also develops the Google Chrome web browser,121 and Chrome OS, an operating system based on Chrome.122 HardwareEdit Google Pixel smartphones on display in a store In January 2010, Google released Nexus One, the first Android phone under its own, "Nexus", brand.123 It spawned a number of phones and tablets under the "Nexus" branding124 until its eventual discontinuation in 2016, replaced by a new brand called, Pixel.125 In 2011, the Chromebook was introduced, described as a "new kind of computer" running Chrome OS.126 In July 2013, Google introduced the Chromecast dongle, that allows users to stream content from their smartphones to televisions.127128 In June 2014, Google announced Google Cardboard, a simple cardboard viewer that lets user place their smartphone in a special front compartment to view virtual reality (VR) media.129130 * The Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones with the Google Assistant, a next-generation contextual voice assistant, built-in.131 * Google Home, an Amazon Echo-like voice assistant placed in the house that can answer voice queries, play music, find information from apps (calendar, weather etc.), and control third-party smart home appliances (users can tell it to turn on the lights, for example). The Google Home line also includes variants such as the Google Home Hub, Google Home Mini, and Google Home Max132 * Daydream View virtual reality headset that lets Android users with compatible Daydream-ready smartphones put their phones in the headset and enjoy VR content.133 * Google Wifi, a connected set of Wi-Fi routers to simplify and extend coverage of home Wi-Fi.134 Enterprise servicesEdit Main articles: G Suite and Google Cloud Platform G Suite is a monthly subscription offering for organizations and businesses to get access to a collection of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Drive and Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides, with additional administrative tools, unique domain names, and 24/7 support.135 On September 24, 2012,136 Google launched Google for Entrepreneurs, a largely not-for-profit business incubatorproviding startups with co-working spaces known as Campuses, with assistance to startup founders that may include workshops, conferences, and mentorships.137 Presently, there are 7 Campus locations in Berlin, London, Madrid, Seoul, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, and Warsaw. On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, "a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers" which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform. Among other things, the suite is designed to help "enterprise class marketers" "see the complete customer journey", generate "useful insights", and "deliver engaging experiences to the right people".138 Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the suite competes with existing marketing cloud offerings by companies including Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM.139 Internet servicesEdit In February 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project, with experimental plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities.140141 Following Google's corporate restructure to make Alphabet Inc. its parent company, Google Fiber was moved to Alphabet's Access division.142143 In April 2015, Google announced Project Fi, a mobile virtual network operator, that combines Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different telecommunication providers in an effort to enable seamless connectivity and fast Internet signal.144145146 In September 2016, Google began its Google Station initiative, a project for public Wi-Fi at railway stations in India. Caesar Sengupta, VP for Google's next billion users, told The Verge that 15,000 people get online for the first time thanks to Google Station and that 3.5 million people use the service every month. The expansion meant that Google was looking for partners around the world to further develop the initiative, which promised "high-quality, secure, easily accessible Wi-Fi".147 By December, Google Station had been deployed at 100 railway stations,148 and in February, Google announced its intention to expand beyond railway stations, with a plan to bring citywide Wi-Fi to Pune.149150 Other productsEdit In May 2011, Google announced Google Wallet, a mobile application for wireless payments.151 In 2013, Google launched Google Shopping Express, a delivery service initially available only in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.152 Corporate affairsEdit FinanceEdit Further information: Corporation tax in the Republic of Ireland § Multinational tax schemes, and Google tax Then-CEO, now Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt with cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (left to right) in 2008. Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004. At IPO, the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.4445 The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.48 The stock performed well after the IPO, with shares hitting $350 for the first time on October 31, 2007,153primarily because of strong sales and earnings in the online advertising market.154 The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.154 GOOG shares split into GOOG class C sharesand GOOGL class A shares.155 The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbols GOOGL and GOOG, and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1. These ticker symbols now refer to Alphabet Inc., Google's holding company, since the fourth quarter of 2015.156 The corporation's consolidated revenue for the third quarter of 2013 was reported in mid-October 2013 as $14.89 billion, a 12 percent increase compared to the previous quarter.157 Google's Internet business was responsible for $10.8 billion of this total, with an increase in the number of users' clicks on advertisements.158 By January 2014, Google's market capitalization had grown to $397 billion.159 Google uses various tax avoidance strategies. Out of the five largest American technology companies, it pays the lowest taxes to the countries of origin of its revenues. Google between 2007 and 2010 saved $3.1 billion in taxes by shuttling non-U.S. profits through Ireland and the Netherlands and then to Bermuda. Such techniques lower its non-U.S. tax rate to 2.3 per cent, while normally the corporate tax rate in for instance the UK is 28 per cent.160 This has reportedly sparked a French investigation into Google's transfer pricing practices.161 Google Vice-President Matt Brittin testified to the Public Accounts Committee of the UK House of Commons that his UK sales team made no sales and hence owed no sales taxes to the UK.162 In January 2016, Google reached a settlement with the UK to pay £130m in back taxes plus higher taxes in future.163 In 2017, Google channeled $22.7 billion from the Netherlands to Bermuda to reduce its tax bill.164 In 2013, Google ranked 5th in lobbying spending, up from 213th in 2003. In 2012, the company ranked 2nd in campaign donations of technology and Internet sections.165 Corporate identityEdit Main articles: History of Google § Name, Google (verb), and Google logo Main articles: Google Doodle, List of Google April Fools' Day jokes, and List of Google Easter eggs Google's logo from 2013-2015 The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol",166167 which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Page and Brin write in their original paper on PageRank:168 "We chose our systems name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10100 and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines." Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google" was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."169170 Google's mission statement, from the outset, was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful",171 and its unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil".172 In October 2015, a related motto was adopted in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase: "Do the right thing".173 The original motto was retained in the code of conduct of Google, now a subsidiary of Alphabet.11 The original Google logo was designed by Sergey Brin.174 Since 1998, Google has been designing special, temporary alternate logos to place on their homepage intended to celebrate holidays, events, achievements and people. The first Google Doodle was in honor of the Burning Man Festival of 1998.175176 The doodle was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. Subsequent Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, until Larry and Sergey asked then-intern Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day in 2000. From that point onward, Doodles have been organized and created by a team of employees termed "Doodlers".177 Google has a tradition of creating April Fools' Day jokes. Its first on April 1, 2000 was Google MentalPlex which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.178 In 2007, Google announced a free Internet service called TiSP, or Toilet Internet Service Provider, where one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet.179 Google's services contain easter eggs, such as the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, "Hacker" or leetspeak, Elmer Fudd, Pirate, and Klingon as language selections for its search engine.180 When searching for the word "anagram," meaning a rearrangement of letters from one word to form other valid words, Google's suggestion feature displays "Did you mean: nag a ram?"181 Workplace cultureEdit Google employees marching in the Pride in London parade in 2016 On Fortune magazine's list of the best companies to work for, Google ranked first in 2007, 2008 and 2012,182183184 and fourth in 2009 and 2010.185186 Google was also nominated in 2010 to be the world's most attractive employer to graduating students in the Universum Communications talent attraction index.187 Google's corporate philosophy includes principles such as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."188 As of December 2018, Google has 98,771 employees.4 Google's 2017 diversity report states that 31 percent of its workforce are women and 69 percent are men, with the ethnicity of its workforce being predominantly white (56%) and Asian (35%).189 Within tech roles, however, 20 percent were women; and 25 percent of leadership roles were held by women.189 Google's employees are hired based on a hierarchical system. Employees are split into six hierarchies based on experience and can range "from entry-level data center workers at level one to managers and experienced engineers at level six."190 As a motivation technique, Google uses a policy known as Innovation Time Off, where Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time on projects that interest them. Some of Google's services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors.191 In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice-President of Search Products and User Experience until July 2012, showed that half of all new product launches in the second half of 2005 had originated from the Innovation Time Off.192 In 2005, articles in The New York Times193 and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.194195196 In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google designated a Chief Culture Officer whose purpose was to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on.197 Google has also faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.198199 In 2013, a class action against several Silicon Valley companies, including Google, was filed for alleged "no cold call" agreements which restrained the recruitment of high-tech employees.200 Office locationsEdit Further information: Googleplex Google's New York City office building houses its largest advertising sales team. Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California is referred to as "the Googleplex", a play on words on the number googolplex and the headquarters itself being a complex of buildings. Internationally, Google has over 78 offices in more than 50 countries.201 In 2006, Google moved into about 300,000 square feet (27,900 m2) of office space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. The office was designed and built specially for Google, and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships.202 In 2010, Google bought the building housing the headquarter, in a deal that valued the property at around $1.9 billion.203204 In March 2018, Google's parent company Alphabet bought the nearby Chelsea Market building for $2.4 billion. The sale is touted as one of the most expensive real estate transactions for a single building in the history of New York.205206207208 In November 2018, Google announced its plan to expand its New York City office to a capacity of 12,000 employees.209 The same December, it was announced that a $1 billion, 1,700,000-square-foot (160,000 m2) headquarters for Google would be built in Manhattan's Hudson Square neighborhood.210211 Called Google Hudson Square, the new campus is projected to more than double the number of Google employees working in New York City.212 By late 2006, Google established a new headquarters for its AdWords division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.213 In November 2006, Google opened offices on Carnegie Mellon's campus in Pittsburgh, focusing on shopping-related advertisement coding and smartphone applications and programs.214215 Other office locations in the U.S. include Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Kirkland, Washington; Birmingham, Michigan; Reston, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.216 It also has product research and development operations in cities around the world, namely Sydney (birthplace location of Google Maps)217 and London (part of Android development).218 In November 2013, Google announced plans for a new London headquarter, a 1 million square foot office able to accommodate 4,500 employees. Recognized as one of the biggest ever commercial property acquisitions at the time of the deal's announcement in January,219 Google submitted plans for the new headquarter to the Camden Council in June 2017.220221 In May 2015, Google announced its intention to create its own campus in Hyderabad, India. The new campus, reported to be the company's largest outside the United States, will accommodate 13,000 employees.222223 InfrastructureEdit Further information: Google data centers A Google Datacenter in Oklahoma Google data centers are located in North and South America, Asia, Europe.224 There’s no official data on how many servers there are in Google data centers, but Gartnerestimated in a July 2016 report that Google at the time had 2.5 million servers.225Traditionally, Google relied on parallel computing on commodity hardware226 like mainstream x86 computers similar to home PCs227 to keep costs per query low.228 In 2005, it started developing its own designs, which were only revealed in 2009.228 As of October 2018, Orange has teamed up with Google in order to create a transatlanticundersea cable to share data between the United States and France at faster speeds. Planned to begin operation in 2020, the cable is purported to transfer information at rates “more than 30 terabits per second, per fibre pair”. The cable will span approximately 6600 kilometers in length.229 EnvironmentEdit In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.230 The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.230Since 2007, Google has aimed for carbon neutrality in regard to its operations.231 Google disclosed in September 2011 that it "continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes", almost 260 million watts or about a quarter of the output of a nuclear power plant. Total carbon emissions for 2010 were just under 1.5 million metric tons, mostly due to fossil fuels that provide electricity for the data centers. Google said that 25 percent of its energy was supplied by renewable fuels in 2010. An average search uses only 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, so all global searches are only 12.5 million watts or 5% of the total electricity consumption by Google.232 In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8 million into two wind farmsin North Dakota. The company announced the two locations will generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to supply 55,000 homes.233 In February 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FERC granted Google an authorization to buy and sell energy at market rates.234 The corporation exercised this authorization in September 2013 when it announced it would purchase all the electricity produced by the not-yet-built 240-megawatt Happy Hereford wind farm.235 In July 2010, Google signed an agreement with an Iowa wind farm to buy 114 megawatts of energy for 20 years.236 In December 2016, Google announced that—starting in 2017—it will power all of its data centers, as well as all of its offices, from 100% renewable energy. The commitment will make Google "the world's largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy". Google also stated that it does not count that as its final goal; it says that "since the wind doesn't blow 24 hours a day, we'll also broaden our purchases to a variety of energy sources that can enable renewable power, every hour of every day". Additionally, the project will "help support communities" around the world, as the purchase commitments will "result in infrastructure investments of more than $3.5 billion globally", and will "generate tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue to local property owners, and tens of millions more to local and national governments in tax revenue".237238239 In November 2017, Google bought 536 megawatts of wind power. The purchase made the firm reach 100% renewable energy. The wind energy comes from two power plants in South Dakota, one in Iowa and one in Oklahoma.240 PhilanthropyEdit Main article: Google.org In 2004, Google formed the not-for-profit philanthropic Google.org, with a start-up fund of $1 billion.241 The mission of the organization is to create awareness about climate change, global public health, and global poverty. One of its first projects was to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 miles per gallon. Google hired Larry Brilliant as the program'